Quote of the Day: Fantods Inflicting Edition

“Making a crude single-shot pistol on a $1,500 printer is far more cumbersome than buying a factory-made multi-shot gun, for a fraction of the price, out of the newspaper classifieds. What really has people upset about Wilson’s plastic pistol is the absence of permission inherent in the project. The idea that people might own something as dangerous and personally empowering as a firearm without society’s permission is what has always given gun-control advocates the fantods. That’s really what we talk about when we talk about guns: the power of the individual in relation to the collective, and the extent to which each of us needs to live by the permission of the rest. That argument is going nowhere, in all senses of the word.” – Dan Baum in On Gun Control and the Great American Debate Over Individualism [via Harper’s]

For the record, “fantods” was a term frequently used in Mark Twain’s work. It referred to what is technically called “delirium tremens,” acute alcohol withdrawal. We called it “seeing snakes” where I grew up.

That’s also the reason so many people; even so called gun rights supporters; hyper ventilate with fear and adhominem attacks against people that Open Carry; generally one can OC without a permit and you are no longer one of the sheep; you are now openly showing yourself to be a sheep dog without a badge.

Two fears confronted, a practice of a right without a permit and facing the fear of not being one of the herd by no longer being a prey animal called an unarmed human being.

No J and D, it wasn’t a hijack attempt and it is relevant to the subject, it’s another facet of peoples fear of going outside of the “social norm” of the group; the whole point of web sites like this , to me; is to recreate the social norm that built this country, where the keeping and bearing of arms without permission from the state was the accepted social norm.

How an elected offical or appointed legistator can dictate when, where, & how one can lawfully protect one’s self then claim no responsibility when citizens following those rules are murdered, shows how disconected they are from reality.

Thank you Mr. Zimmerman for doing such a good job at explaining what really drives the attitudes of most, if not all, advocates of gun control legislation. Heaven forbid that someone own something without official permission.